The Philadelphia Eagles are going to the White House after all.
The Eagles will celebrate their win in Super Bowl LIX officially on April 28, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Tuesday.
“I know there was a lot of fake news about an invitation that wasn’t sent or was sent. We want to correct the record: We sent an invitation. They enthusiastically accepted, and you will see them here on April 28,” Leavitt said at the daily White House briefing, via The Athletic.
While visiting the White House to celebrate a championship with the president is a longstanding tradition in the United States, that fell off significantly during President Donald Trump’s first stint in office. The Golden State Warriors, for example, decided not to visit after winning NBA titles in 2017 and 2018.
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The Eagles will be the second team to visit the Trump White House this year. The Florida Panthers visited Trump last month to celebrate their Stanley Cup title from last season.
The Eagles did not visit the White House after their win in Super Bowl LII. Trump said he withdrew their invitation and claimed that was due to the team remaining in the locker room during the national anthem that season, however there were no known instances of players doing so that season. Some Eagles had criticized the NFL’s policy that required players to stand on the field for the anthem that season.
A later report revealed that the Eagles were planning to send just a small group to meet Trump, and that most, if not all, of the team’s Black players were opting out.
The Eagles said shortly after their win over the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl earlier this year that they would go if they were invited — which was something that was called into question in the weeks after the game. Trump confirmed last month, however, that he planned to invite them. He became the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl last month when he went to the game in New Orleans, though he famously picked the Chiefs to win in part because of Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ wife.
Now, after a bit of controversy, a date is officially on the books. Whether the entire Eagles team opts to make the trek to Washington to celebrate or not, however, remains to be seen.
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